He brought back also a live jaguar, specimen of a South American tiger, and twenty-four living parroquets. The most interesting of all, however, was an Indian boy of fourteen, whom he intended to have taught in the United States, with the view of ultimately sending him back to his native land as a missionary. The idea was good, but to carry it out was quite impossible. Marcus was an imp. It was with almost magical rapidity that he could plan and execute mischief. He succeeded in breaking the collar-bone of the cook living in the family of Mr. David Dudley Field, and his delight was to lay snares in dark halls and passages, and if he was opposed he did not hesitate to seize a carving-knife and flourish it frantically about. A civilized life was not attractive to him; and while Mr. Field was in England in 1856, his relations, who had tried in vain to Christianize the boy, decided to return him to his father, a bull-fighter in South America.

But Mr. Field’s special desire for returning home by an appointed day was gratified. On October 31, 1853, all the descendants of Dr. and Mrs. Field excepting their son Stephen and one grandson met in Stockbridge. Thirty-nine of the family dined together in the old home, and that afternoon all the friends and neighbors came to congratulate the former minister and his wife. The house had, the year before, been bought by their sons David Dudley and Cyrus, and had been put in perfect order, and the younger son had had it completely furnished for his parents.

In writing to his mother on October 31, 1835, Mr. Field said: “Brother Timothy sailed the day that I got back from Southwick; I received a letter from him a few days ago. He sent his love to you, father, and all friends, but had time to write only a few words as they passed a vessel. He says the captain is a pious man, and that they have prayers morning and evening.” Later in the year came the news that Timothy had sailed from New Orleans in the ship Two Brothers, and that vessel was never heard from. For many years the family entertained the hope that he would return, and his brother Cyrus spent “hundreds of dollars” advertising in newspapers and offering a reward for tidings of him. About 1847 or 1848 a captain reported that he had had a shipmate named Field, whose father was a clergyman, and who had many brothers who were not sailors. He also said that his shipmate had married in South America, and was living there a very wealthy planter. He gave these particulars to relieve the anxiety felt by the family, and refused to take any reward. The news caused great excitement among the brothers, and had a steamer sailed that day one of them would probably have gone in her. But, failing that, they consulted together and agreed to write. They not only sent letters to their brother, but to the officials of the place. The letters were returned, and the officials made answer that no such person lived there. It was, however, with the same end in view that when rest was ordered for Mr. Field, South America was chosen to be the country visited. The search was a fruitless one, and no tidings were obtained. His mother did not give up all hope of hearing from her son Timothy until she was told that her son Cyrus had come home and had brought no news of him.

After Mr. Field’s return to New York in November, 1853, he tried to interest himself in work outside of his old business, and for one week succeeded in staying away from his office in Cliff Street.

It was of this time that one of his brother’s wrote, “I never saw Cyrus so uneasy as when he was trying to keep still.”

CHAPTER V
THE FIRST CABLE
(1853-1857)

THE last sentence of the last chapter is a true indication of character. Mr. Field had doubtless expected, when he retired from business, to retire permanently, and to spend in ease not only the evening and the afternoon but the meridian of his life. But it was not to be, and one may well imagine that his previous experiences had been a providential preparation for the great work of his life, the great work of his time. It matters little who first conceived as a dream the notion of electric communication across the Atlantic. To realize that dream there was needed precisely the qualities and the circumstances of Cyrus W. Field. Here was a man whose restless energy had not yet begun to be impaired by time, but who was already a successful man. In virtue of his success he was able not only to devote himself to a work which he was convinced was as practical as it was beneficent—he was able also to enlist the co-operation of wealthy men, whom the project of an Atlantic cable would have left quite cold if it had been propounded to them by a mere electrician. They could not have helped regarding the scheme as chimerical and fantastic if a purely scientific man had approached them with it, even with the most plausible figures to prove its practicability and profitableness. To give it a chance of success with them, it must be presented and believed in by one whose previous life and whose personal success forbade them to regard him as a visionary, and who by force of his position as well as of his qualities was able to infect them with some part of his own confidence and enthusiasm. Mr. Field was that unique man, and hence it is that he must be regarded as the one indispensable factor in the execution of a transatlantic system of telegraphic communication, inevitably soon to become a world-wide system, and far to outrun in actual fact the poet’s daring dream of putting “a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes.”

It was on Mr. Field’s return from Washington late in the month of January, 1854, that his brother Matthew asked him to have a talk with Mr. Frederick N. Gisborne, who was stopping at the Astor House. Mr. Gisborne was an engineer and telegraph operator, and his desire had been to connect St. John’s, Newfoundland, with the telegraphic system of the United States.

In the spring of 1852 the Legislature of Newfoundland had passed an act incorporating the Newfoundland Electric Telegraph Company, and had given to Mr. Gisborne the exclusive right to erect telegraphs in Newfoundland for thirty years, with certain concessions of land by way of encouragement to be granted upon the completion of the telegraph from St. John’s to Cape Ray, and on his return to New York he formed a company, and in the spring of 1853 set vigorously to work to build the line. He had successfully completed some thirty or forty miles when his work was suddenly brought to a standstill by the failure of the company to furnish the means to carry it on.

“He returned to New York from his difficult and unaccomplished task utterly disappointed and beggared, and at this time was waiting for something to turn up.” Mr. Field saw Mr. Gisborne, heard what he had done and what he had failed to do, and became at once interested in the work. This meeting was followed by many others, and after they had parted late one evening, as Mr. Field stood studying intently the large globe that was in his library, it flashed across his mind that, if it were possible to connect Newfoundland with the United States, why not Ireland with Newfoundland?